Yes, we are a sauce house, not a gravy house. I call it sauce, my father called it sauce. However, my great aunts who used to live at 1128 Ritner St. many moons ago called it sauce and gravy.

I don’t like storms like we had yesterday. The power of water and wind is a scary combination so I made tomato sauce and meatballs.

Stand aside, Susan Noles from The Golden Bachelor I like mine better. I will add a disclaimer that, although I’ve written it down, the recipe still might need tweaking. But I think it’s pretty good, or good enough to share.

Meatballs

One package meatloaf mix (each package is a little over a pound. Maybe 1 lbs. 4 oz.)

1 small onion, diced

6-8 slices of stale sandwich bread crumbed up.

1/3 c or more grated cheese (eyeball it)

1 egg

Salt and pepper, dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder

Maybe 1/3 cup buttermilk

I start with letting the breadcrumbs just sit out there a while that I have created from stale bread. That way they dry out a little bit. I might do that while I’m starting my sauce.

So I take a big mixing bowl and that’s what I put the bread/breadcrumbs in.

If I don’t have enough stale bread to make the meatballs with, I use Panko bread crumbs and eyeball it. After you make meatballs a while, you can tell by the way it feels when you’re mixing it together if it needs more moisture or more bread crumbs.

To the breadcrumbs, I add the onion, the herbs, some salt and pepper, a liberal amount of garlic powder, and the grated cheese. I like a greater cheese that is a Parmesan and Romano blend, and if I can get the grated cheese blends that are more than two cheeses I get those.

And this is grated cheese not shredded cheese. It’s the stuff that feels almost dry. I make the distinction because I told somebody verbally how I made meatballs one time and they didn’t like the way they turned out because they used shredded cheese and shredded cheese doesn’t work.

Next I add the package of meatloaf mix and mix it together thoroughly.

After the meat mix is incorporated into the breadcrumb mixture, I next add one raw egg. I just crack it right in on top. Some people like to mix the egg up before they add it, it’s your choice.

Finally, I add the buttermilk. Everything should be moist but hold together nicely when you make little balls and I don’t make big meatballs. I make meatballs that are not bite-size but you can cut them in half with a fork and each meatball is essentially two bites so they’re about an inch and a half raw and round.

Meanwhile, and I should’ve said this earlier, I have preheated an oven to 350° F.

I have one of my sheet pans because it does have a lip, lined with nonstick aluminum foil. I roll out all my Meatballs, one by one and lined them up on the baking sheet on the foil. Then I throw them into my preheated oven and I would say about 35 minutes and they’re good to go into the sauce. I don’t completely cook them through in the oven but I need to make sure that the meatballs are crispy and firm on the outside. Then they finish cooking in the sauce, but they don’t fall apart.

I guess I should tell you how to make the sauce, right? I will start by saying I love the Mutti brand tomato products. I discovered them a few years ago and use them whenever possible.

The Sauce

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 28 oz can purée or 1 24 oz jar Mutti Passata

1 hot pepper – I like a Fresno pepper for this or a Serrano (seeded and minced)

2 onions chopped (I use one red and one yellow onion)

6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

1 chopped carrot

1 bunch flat leaf Italian parsley chopped

Dried oregano
Basil
Salt and pepper

1 Bay leaf

Sauté the pepper, carrot, the onions and garlic in extra virgin olive oil with salt to taste. When the onions are translucent or cooked down even further next you add your tomatoes you let everything come together over a slow and steady flame and then you add the parsley, and finally 1 Bay leaf.

Tomato sauce is really easy you don’t have to over complicate it. In other sources depending on what I’m doing I will add sweet peppers chopped up I like red and orange and yellow. I don’t add green. I don’t really like sweet green peppers except for stuffed peppers. Other times I add mushrooms.

Often times with my sauce, if it’s not just meatballs, I will start with browning the meat. Sausage, pork or lamb, sometimes beef. I will brown in salt and pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Then I will pull the meat out and blot grease by putting it on plate lined with paper towels. Then I will go on with the sauce, adding the meat back in the end.

Anyway, back to this sauce. After the onions and garlic and pepper and carrot were cooked a bit and the onion translucent, first I add the tomatoes, then the passata or purée, then the tomato paste.

I cook over a low flame, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes. Next I check for salt. I don’t like things too salty.

Then I add the chopped parsley, stir that in, and when the meatballs come out of the oven after they have rested 10 minutes, I add the meatballs to the sauce and everything sits on a very low flame for a couple of hours. You have to stir every 20 minutes or so because you don’t want it to stick.

I should tell you that you can double this recipe. And if your grocery store doesn’t have meatloaf mix, you can do a combination of ground beef, pork and lamb or ground beef, pork and veal.

Prepare your favorite pasta and I suggest putting the sauce on the pasta and mixing it in one bowl and putting another bowl with the meatballs so people can have as many or as few meatballs as they choose.

You can serve with a salad, as well as a nice crusty loaf of bread if you choose.